The stalemate over electronic rights to some of Pat Conroy’s backlist titles has been resolved and Open Road is going ahead with ebook release of the titles that they announced almost a year ago. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt spokesperson Lori Glazer tells the AP, “in this instance we negotiated an agreed-upon separation of print from electronic, to our mutual satisfaction.” Arthur Klebanoff at Rosetta Books, who had published an ebook version of The Prince of Tides, says: “Did I want to renew this license? The answer is ‘Yes.’ But until the arrival of the Kindle, you had a tiny, tiny marketplace. […]
Authors
Hitchens Interviewed
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg conducts a video interview with Christopher Hitchens at his home in Washington, DC. Hitchens comments, “there are bad days, and there are worse days.” He reveals that the esophogeal cancer for which he is being treated has spread to his lymph nodes. “It’s not a good cancer to get…. I would be a very lucky person to live another five years.”Video
People, Etc.
Michelle Andelman has joined Regal Literary, where she will represent children’s fiction. Previously she worked as a foreign rights scout and with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Roger Jon Ellory has won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for A Simple Act of Violence (Orion)The Guardian Booksource will shut down its Irish subsidiary CMD Booksource this fall, citing “very difficult trading conditions.”The Bookseller
Wylie Agency Launches eBook Company, Gives Amazon Exclusive on First Titles
Andrew Wylie has made good on threats to create his own company to distribute ebooks by making deals directly with etailers rather than traditional publishers, announcing the launch of Odyssey Editions. In the first announcement, Odyssey will issue ebook versions of select titles from some of the key authors and literary estates The Wylie Agency represents, including John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Hunter Thompson–and has given Amazon a two-year exclusive. The 20 titles announced so far including the Rabbit tetralogy from John Updike, MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN and LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov. Many of these titles are appearing in digital […]
1 million E-Books for the Millenium Trilogy, Hyperion Cancels Book by Elizabeth Gilbert’s Ex-Husband; and More Briefs
Knopf announced that Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy has sold more than 1 million e-book copies, according to the AP. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, in particular, is doing extremely well, selling more than 500,000 copies in all digital formats as well as being the all-time top selling Kindle book (Kathryn Stockett’s THE HELP is at #2.) “We are witnessing record-breaking sales for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO in trade and mass market paperback as well as in audio, so it is not surprising that this trend is being mirrored with e-books,” Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards told the AP […]
Evanovich Contract Negotiations Become News Story
News of an author switching publishing houses often doesn’t even trickle out into public view until the most recent book arrives with a different colophon on the side of the hardcover or paperback. Reports on contract negotiations are even rarer – but for the big brand names, anything is news. Hence yesterday’s story at Deadline.com about negotiations between Janet Evanovich and St. Martin’s Press, which has published every Stephanie Plum novel since 1996 and just released the newest #1 NYT bestseller, SIZZLING SIXTEEN. Per the wispily sourced piece, SMP allegedly turned down Evanovich’s hoped-for contract extension of $50 million for […]